[Ro's Writing Camp Experience]

In four days and nine hours, plus late-night writing sessions, I wrote more than I would've in a year excluding NaNoWriMo. We wrote poetry, historical fiction, sense memory...so I want to share it with you guys!

**more to come when I finish it

Here we go!

An American Sentence

A 17 syllable poem developed by Allen Ginsberg

[/center]

I was born on the Fourth of July, but the fireworks aren’t for me.

He sits lazily at his desk and implores me to do so much more.

Fireflies, lit up, cut up, my cousins smearing themselves with their glow.

We read, discuss, and analyze it, but the green light is still a myth.

Six Word Memoirs

The most famous being by Ernest Hemingway[/center]
Sixteen years old, seeking some grandparents.

Lust to travel, inhibited by arachnophobia.

Has contracted middle child syndrome, self-diagnosed.


[/I]


Desire nibbles carrots in the kitchen,

Wearing a stained t-shirt and a nicotine patch,

Yet swirls the ashes hidden in his pocket.



Insanity fingers the bars above his bed,

In his very best night shirt,

And whispers as he pushes and pulls, “but you’ve got me all wrong.”



Greed chortles in his puffy chair,

Feet encased in metal cleats,

As he reaches forward to the table for more and more.




We sit on the coarse white blanket set to a background of overgrown grass and empty dugouts next to dirt fields. Peanut butter, smooth and thick in my mouth, fills my nostrils too, but fails to mask the odor of a musky sweat courtesy of the bright sun. My hair is thick and hot against my neck, but my skin lets loose an army of goose bumps when his hand brushes it away. His deep laughter fills the air close to my ear to combat the bee buzzing around our heads as I shiver. Greasy fingers dip into crinkling bags of chips once more and we both grimace when we swallow an unchewed chip and it scrapes painfully down our throats. Then, it’s to melted chocolate, warm and sticky, that only adds some sweetness to the grassy air.




On Carnival and Wine

The wailing of Matilda behind him did little to improve Francis’s mood. “But, I want to see him play the flute!” she cried, tugging at his brand new tunic, freshly made by Mother, as she stomped behind him.


“Be quiet,” he scorned her, grabbing her tugging hand and pulling her through the pressing crowd that was chattering and shouting away eagerly. The festival was well underway and every face not encased in a colorfully painted mask was wild with laughter. Matilda, on the other hand, cried even more loudly when her older brother lifted her up over a puddle of mud and even farther away from the troubadours with their flute and song.


“Why can’t I?” she whined, stumbling a bit over her dark green dress when he set her down again and Francis had to grab her hand once more to keep her from knocking into a nearby vendor’s table which was advertising cheeses.


“Because we’re busy,” Francis replied blankly, eyes following a slender maiden across the field with rosy cheeks and a purple dress dancing before another set of musicians. The entire festival was overwhelming, riddled with cries of, “Happy Carnival,” quick, strummed instruments, the silky slither of the flute and the swishing of skirts as women, such as the one before him, abandoned all and gave in to the lure of the music. Tearing his eyes away, for suddenly the preaching against such acts or thoughts by the bishop that morning had boomed into his ear, Francis turned back to his little sister, “Mother wants some new fabric. Dark green, she said.” Matilda tugged her own faded frock, rubbing the rough fabric between little hands, and pouted. “Let’s go-”


“Young squire!” Francis’s gaze was pulled away from his little sister once more to a vendor’s table next to him. The man behind it had taken down his mask, a green and purple thing, and set it beside his cask. “Wine, boy?” His green eyes glittered and when he grinned with chapped lips, laughter lines were drawn into his face. Francis held up his hand as if to decline, but the man poured him a glass anyway and pushed it forward. “Straight from France. The best you’ll ever taste. Eight pence.” Francis’s eyebrows shot up and his hand, which was just closing around the warm, sticky glass, opened once more and set it down with a little thud. The vendor frowned, “No, no, you won’t regret it, I assure you.” Francis felt his hand around the glass once more.


The air was cool, with a gentle wind that made the net holding Matilda’s hair rustle, but no one could hear it for a group of boys carrying a chicken had just run past, splattering the girl with mud. She began to howl once more. “Francis!” Tears streamed down her cheeks, leaving trails of dirt, and her teeth chattered, but Francis ignored her. The bag of shillings hidden in his cloak seemed to burn against his thigh. Just before Francis had stormed off with his fists tight, his father had stuffed it into his hand. “Get your mother her fabric,” he commanded, “and don’t you disobey me again.” And then he turned back to grab his bow and compete in the archery tournament, the very same tournament that Francis had trained for for months, taking his bow out every morning and shooting down the birds in the woods, tightening his bow string weekly and crafting his own arrows if one broke only to be declined to compete by his father. “You are my squire. You are not a knight.”


Francis’s cheek was still burning from the strike he received from his Father when he continued to argue and had seared even hotter when other squires, who had been allowed by their fathers, chuckled behind their bows. It was a mark of shame that he now carried through the festival and to the grinning man before him, winking as he reminded, “Only Eight pence.” Eight pence would easily lighten the money pouch, but he could still get Mother some fabric…the thin kind that would soon fray and fade back into the same frock as the one Matilda was wearing as she tugged at his own brand-new sleeve again.


“Francis…” she moaned and he shoved her away for a second time. Don’t disobey me. Father’s words were ringing in his ears like the bells in church this morning coupled with the gravelly cries of the Bishop warning sharply against temptation and the devil with his sharp, gripping claws, but beyond the vendor’s stall in the wet field on that gray morning, the young maiden was dancing again and some secret switch inside of Francis had turned on and his skin was crawling with goose bumps, his heart racing as her little breasts bounced up and down and her dress swished. He could almost smell her, the scent of sin in the form of warm sweat and sharp, metallic money. Father would never approve, Father would be angry, but Father, Francis bit his tongue, had refused him. The girl danced on and on. Matilda’s whiney voice melted away behind him to be replaced by the clang of coins as Francis reached into his coat pocket, eyes glassy, and produced the wallet. He counted out eight pence and placed them down on the table.


“Thank you, young squire,” the man chuckled passing Francis the wine and with his eyes still firmly upon the dancing woman, Francis raised it to his lips and took a sip.


[/size][/color][/blockquote][/blockquote]